Vatican Issue

For many months, the question of withdrawing the French Embassy to the Vatican has been one of the greatest issues on the horizon for French domestic politics. Opposition came from a staunch conservative section of Catholics, but nowhere was feeling so hostile as in the two long-lost provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. Nor was this all. In France, the Church is completely and utterly divorced from politics and education. Not so in Alsace and Lorraine (TIME. Sept. 8). It was only perfectly natural that the Government at Paris should wish the two Provinces to be governed by the same laws as is the rest of France and that was indeed its policy. But the Alsatians and Lorrainers resisted. The old laws which they had enjoyed under Kaiser Wilhelm were good enough for them. Never would they give them up. Such a firm stand embarrassed Premier Herriot who announced that French laws would progressively be applied to the two Provinces. That pronouncement, in turn, was met with stonewall opposition. In the past week, Premier Herriot made the startling discovery that the Concordat concluded between the Vatican and Napoleon in 1801 was still in force, which means that Alsace and Lorraine will be allowed to keep their laws and to have representation at the Holy See.* Said the Premier to the Chamber of Deputies: "The regime of the Concordat will continue to be applied to Alsace-Lorraine until Parliament has definitely decided otherwise. The modus vivendi was easily found and we will apply it loyally and sincerely. Our attitude is based on the principle that the general regime of France cannot be applied brusquely to Alsace-Lorraine; while on the other hand, we cannot apply to entire France the religious status now in force in the recovered provinces." This was indeed a great victory, for it destroyed at one sweep the Catholic opposition of the Alsace and Lorraine Deputies and left the way open for an early suppression of the Vatican Embassy, which followed promptly when the Deputies set their approval on it by a vote of 314 to 250.

*The two Provinces will be represented by a Charge d'Affaires Delegate.